Category: selected scenes

Dead Show Eulogy: More Tears (1998)

A Canadian Legacy TV Review and Personal Discussion

“(…) Why do they call news, ‘stories?’ After man takes care of his basic animal needs, he indulges in a behaviour not imposed by nature, but invented by him. Emerging, as it does, from his imagination, can we not, then, call all invented human life (…) a fiction?”

– Peter Keleghan in
Ken Finkleman’s The Newsroom
(Episode 1×12: Meltdown Pt.3)

Preface

What are ‘White guy problems’?

Patriarchally speaking, man-kind is always thinking about ‘man-things’. Whether you have the privilege to only have to worry about yourself determines its White guy status.

Ken Finkleman – Canada’s answer to a Winnipeg-born, politically-charged Woody Allen (without the marrying-your-adopted-daughter nonsense) – has lots of White guy problems.

That isn’t to say the one-time Hollywood screenwriter & director (Grease 2; Airplane 2; Head Office), comedian, and provocateur’s satirical agenda on fascism & privatization wasn’t valid in its time – isn’t still valid – to the right viewer. Art is, above all, subjective. But when Finkleman calls his audience “an abstract” in a 2013 interview with Canada’s Dick Cavett, George Stroumboulopoulos, Ken’s peak on national television between 1996 & 2005 could retrospectively appear to some as the practice of a middle aged White guy with White guy problems, and the federal financing to produce aesthetically-pleasing art about it.

His acme for most (myself included, as of today) would be The Newsroom – not to be confused with the Aaron Sorkin HBO series – which ran for three split seasons and a TV movie at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. As a Larry Sanders Show-style spoof (think an early-90s The Office) at a television network, Finkleman’s alter ego – news director George Findlay, as played by Ken himself – is his preferred vessel for his commentary on male myopia; cowardliness; and Fellini-esque disdain & admiration for the opposite sex, going so far at one point to physically liken himself to Marcello Mastroianni’s Guido from Fellini’s 8 1/2 (although without making that connection, Ken’s dark sunglasses will likely make a newer generation of viewers think he smoked a big fat doob off-camera, which I wouldn’t rule out, either).

While there are plenty of pro-tem left-minded observations about North American society, it’s Ken’s George and his ensemble’s flagrant pettiness & sharp-edged selfishness that defines season one of the show, with Jeremy Hotz & Karen Hines being personal supporting highlights. But the majority of viewers will flock to Peter Keleghan’s meme-worthy portrayal of an idiot anchor, not unlike Michael Scott.

This era of Newsroom is often very funny and occasionally poignant – particularly the three-parter – but no one else I’ve shown it to, over the last twenty years of being a fan, shares my sentiment.

Time and experience has taught me why: empathy. Ken Finkleman is a Daskeman.

[cont’d]

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Dead Show Eulogy: CSI Vegas (2021)

A spoiler-free mini television review.

SEASON 1 RATING:
4 out of 5

SEASONS 2 & 3 RATING:
1 out of 5

After an underwhelming ‘series finale’ in 2015 (with creepy-guy Doug Hutchinson as the villain), that “CSI” we like came back in style with a standalone, limited-series revival in 2021. It was pretty good, too: cozy returning work from William Pedersen, Jorja Fox, and Paul Guilefoyle; a straightforward serial; and the successful casting of Paula Newsome (“Chicago Med”) as the department’s new supervisor.

I didn’t connect with the other new actors, but those secondaries weren’t the focus: there’s only so many episodic stories you can tell before details overlap, and CSI’s adroitness – from the 15 seasons of the original series to its various spin-offs – was the slow dishing of its characters’ personal info, only ever noting those beats as they pertained to the caseload.

Flash-forward, and – like all good things – executives misread the positive ratings as audiences wanting more. Pedersen, Fox, and Guilefoyle all left, with Marg Helgenberger & Eric Szmanda chosen to represent the old guard’s new bequest. Weeks would go by without fresh episodes, suggesting that focus-group proposals (including dumping an older, tired Szmanda after only three chapters) were being implemented in real-time: always a bad sign.

And both sequel seasons of “CSI Vegas” were pretty bad: staff writers just couldn’t get their priorities straight. Too much time was dedicated to Newsome’s recovery after an assault, and not enough to Lex Medlin’s Beau’s rehabilitation after getting spooked in the field. Helgenberger, like Szmanda, looked tired, and was only in half the episodes. Scribes instead pivoted to Matt Lauria’s Folsom and his poor decision-making (a three-way office romance; avenging his mother’s murder then having to regain the team’s trust), but Lauria played him without irony: his line readings were surface-level gruff, opposed to finding the Warrick-style pathos.

Season 3’s back-end was spent investigating a cyborg factory, which devolved into Newsome having one-way conversations with the suspected robot antagonist in her office. Catherine being a mentor to Sarah Gilman’s Penny was forgotten. And I would be remiss to not mention episode 2-06 (“Here’s the Rub”) as one of the worst-edited forty minutes of television I’ve ever watched – odd, since established director Mario Van Peebles’ filmography suggests a comfort with the TV format.

Relentlessly disappointing from-a-point and contemptuous toward longtime fans, CSI Vegas is now six-feet underground in the grave it dug itself.

RIP 2024

Poster sourced from thetvdb.com c/o Zeferovic. What do you think? Do you agree that Vegas peaked with its first season, or were you a fan of all three? Was it disrespectful of the original series’ legacy – particularly its treatment of Catherine and disregard for her history with Sam Braun – or have you never been a supporter of the CSI franchise? Let us know in the comments below!

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Selected Scenes: Thief

A spoiler-heavy single-scene film analysis & review.

Are there directors you are familiar with who you think you know everything about? You swear you’ve seen ALL their movies, you understand their technique, and when a new movie of theirs’ comes out you recognize their trademarks & make sure all your friends know them too? “That’s why you’ll always find me in the kitchen at parties.” I’m like that with Paul Thomas Anderson, and Michael Mann, apparently. When I first started writing this “Selected Scenes”, I had intended it to be a “Jay’s Take”: I was convinced I knew enough about Mann’s filmography that I was qualified to write a lengthy, in-depth review, as opposed to a quick discussion (since it isn’t like the film doesn’t have a Criterion edition that includes a wealth of supplemental material of more qualified people saying the exact same things… right?). Yes, I have seen a handful of Mann’s movies: some more than once. But to think I am an expert is a fool’s errand: I haven’t seen “Ali” or “Collateral”, nor “The Last of the Mohicans”, or 2015’s career-ending box office dud “Blackhat” (and you think I WOULD have seen that, just to know what the fuss was about). Did you know there’s a Michael Mann horror movie about Nazis and the occult, called “The Keep”? I didn’t, and it sounds awesome! Although, in a way, I know it will also be incredibly disappointing. That’s where I’m at from what I HAVE seen of his, and “Thief” – although it is early Mann, man – follows this methodology to a tee. Even with the seeds of doubt, I still think I know more about Michael Mann’s movies than I platonically should, and I think you’ll find out that you do too.

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Selected Scenes: Bad Lieutenant

A spoiler-free single-scene film review & analysis.

Do you ever have a bad day on the road? Sometimes, I get a kick out of pretending that asshole who just cut me off has a life far worse than mine (even though they drive a shiny Escalade with a bumper-sticker that says “My Other Whale Is My Boat”).

Par-example: today at 3 PM, near a school, my wife and I are trying to get out of our Chinese-reflexology foot massage clinic’s underground parking (or CRFMCUP). My wife was driving, and – men, let’s commiserate here – she’s not the best driver. Truth-be-told we’ve never been in an accident, but I sometimes fear for my life just the same. Now picture a four-way traffic stop, and we’re trying to turn left. Everyone driving straight is coming from the Middle School, and left is bumper-to-bumper because of construction two blocks down. My wife pulls into the middle of the intersection – not letting anyone turn right – only to be denied access to the last spot before the light at the end of the gridlock from some person & their kid in a pick-up. We pull in behind him & stick-out ass-end just as the light changes and we start moving again. It doesn’t sound so bad describing it – considering it took all-of five-whole-seconds out of my day – but I assure you that I was on Death’s door.

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Selected Scenes: Stargate SG-1 111

A spoiler-heavy single-scene TV episode analysis.

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Television takes the over-diversification of cinema and amplifies it to 11, with the same plots and the same beats being repeated ad-nauseum by every nation and orientation inclined to make their own show for the platform. Short-of-it: there is simply too much TV to watch. It’s ridiculous! Sure, maybe a cop show filmed in Germany will be a little harder than one from the States but, a cop show is still a cop show, whether it’s a “buddy” cop show or a “traumatized female detective” cop show or a “murder in a small town” cop show, etcetera. Same with sci-fi shows: how many “teen-aged vampires join a secret society in a Magic School to stop the werewolf invasion of an alien planet that secretly controls the fate of mankind” shows can you name? Same with wormhole shows, apparently.

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